I thank People Before Profit for bringing forward this Bill, which is both timely and essential and which I completely support. As a father of four children, social media is the biggest issue in the day-to-day running of most houses. The influence it has on homes is ridiculous. Children growing up in this time and age are suffering from mental health issues and eating disorders like we have never seen before and it is connected. If we go to a wedding or to any event, we will see children taking out their phones. Th…

I welcome the motion and fully support it. I speak from personal experience. I am from Arranmore Island in County Donegal, with family roots in Loch an Iúir. I know the realities facing other Donegal islands like Tory and Inishbofin. They are living communities. Housing is not just about houses; it is about units and putting down roots. The value of a house needs to be considered in terms of what it brings to a community. It is about whether schools survive, services remain or Irish remains a language for daily lif…

There will be no SNA cuts next year and this is welcome but it does not undo the damage that has already been done. It is significant that public money was spent sending SENOs across the country trying to save money and making cuts. They were forced into it. It was wasted because this process lacks transparency and respect for staff, parents and children. How fiercely we protect the most vulnerable in society, and will continue to do so, was misjudged. In cases where schools no longer needed SNAs and it came to a n…

The HSE health regions were established to improve hospital and community healthcare services, empower local decision-making and support population-based service planning. I support this completely but I am concerned about the centralisation this may cause within the regions themselves. The north-west region often has to compete and fight over the same limited resources as we did during the hospital hub situation. Letterkenny desperately needs a diabetes integrated practice unit. Donegal, under the criteria, warran…

I stand before the Minister of State again. I have raised this countless times with industry representatives and every week at the fisheries committee along with all of my colleagues from Donegal. This is the time for action. We all know the issues in the fishing industry and what we need to do to address them but the issue is will. There is no will from the Government regarding this. There is an absence of will and we are left with this debate - a fruitless attempt by the Government to demonstrate to the public th…

I thank Deputy Lawlor for bringing forward the Bill. We Donegal TDs are geographically isolated and, as some Deputies have said, when it comes to working, people think living in Donegal is akin to being in a different country. Remote working in Donegal does work, has worked and will continue to work, and I believe this Bill will enhance that. When we talk about practical experiences, we are talking about people who travel from Inishowen into Letterkenny. They might leave nearly an hour to go out and have an hour's …

Children with the most complex needs in Donegal are losing essential support under the NESC's reviewed special needs assistants, SNA, review process and it comes at a real human cost. I personally reviewed the situation at Scoil Aodh Rua agus Nuala in Donegal town and what is going on there. There are children who rely on SNA supports to eat, to move and to communicate. These are their primary care needs and yet 2.5 SNAs are being cut from this school next September. It is far too much for this school to manage. If…

I understand what the Taoiseach is saying around the allocations and deployment but in Donegal, it is not practical. For example, if in Donegal you are deployed to somewhere within a certain radius, there are no spaces available. That will not help, and within these schools, these children will be left without the rapport or the relationship they have built up over the years with the SNA who was there to help them. These children in this school are not going out anywhere over the next couple years; they will still …

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Doherty for bringing forward this motion, which I fully support. The Government says that investing in funds helps to increase supply, but that is false. In Donegal, thousands of homes have already been removed from the market because of defective concrete. Families cannot sell. Young people cannot buy. Normal movement has collapsed. To allow these homes to be treated as financial assets is not just wrong; it is immoral. This is not just a local problem. When investors actively push pri…

Raphoe is facing an immediate escalating flood risk and a very serious danger to life. During heavy rainfall, floodwater runs from the hill down into Frank McBrearty's property, then onward towards Irish Street heading downhill and then finishes up at Andrew Hunter's property. There is a 10 ft. hole underneath and it floods into a field in Magherahaan. I understand that the flood prevention works for Raphoe have already been approved and funding is available, yet no works have been commenced and funding has not yet…

Communities in the Finn Valley have suffered catastrophic flooding. In Ballybofey and Stranorlar in particular, there has been repeated flooding over the decades, including major events in the 1960s, 1990s, 2015 and 2020. Each flood has caused significant damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and livelihoods. Families have been traumatised and communities economically and socially scarred, with some failing to recover. The Ballybofey-Stranorlar flood scheme remains at the planning and design stage, as the Min…

I want to address the decision announced last week to exclude St. Eunan's College, Letterkenny, from the latest school capital funding allocation. We need to be clear about this. This school was doing everything it could do, getting everything ready and engaging with the Department. Planning permission has been in place since 2022 and an agreed pathway for progression has been made. I visited the college last week. It is overcrowded and temporary buildings are now becoming permanent. The children in the community h…

I thank the Minister. To elaborate, for someone in Donegal, the cost of getting through a course at the Atlantic Technological University will be around €24,000 and it will cost €60,000 for someone who goes further afield and rents accommodation. For parents living in structurally unsafe homes, the issue is that when they go to rebuild the home, there is a shortfall. With the shortfall comes a decision as to whether to send their children to college. Over a five-year period, they have to decide whether to rebuild t…

That is all welcome but looking at the University of Ulster study on the impact of defective concrete crisis, the profound lasting effects on mental health and well-being going down the line have to be addressed. Last year, there was a 34% increase in youths seeking mental health service supports in Donegal, which is crazy. From day one, I know the Minister has been focused on making education more affordable. He said that and we can see it. Most of all, these young people need support. They have gone through traum…

I absolutely support accelerating the delivery of critical infrastructure such as transport, water and electricity network across the country. I particularly welcome pillar 3 of the infrastructure plan. It looks to build capacity in the construction sector. We desperately need to increase capacity across infrastructure, housing and road projects to meet current and future demand. Pillar 4 will introduce measures to strengthen co-operation between the utilities and local authorities. Too often, there has been a seri…

I acknowledge that local authorities have autonomy in managing the defective concrete blocks scheme but yesterday homeowners were denied transparency. A decision was made not to livestream defective concrete committee meetings where important decisions are made about people’s lives. The councillors who voted against this access represent a deliberate and serious failure to meet acceptable standards of transparency. Homeowners want to know who supports them. The vote yesterday showed who did not support them. They s…

This is regarding the defective concrete committee meetings at council level. They were always broadcast live. A vote was taken yesterday to deny that and now they have been cut off.

No, but this is the biggest scheme-----

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this incredibly important motion on emergency mental health services. It is essential that we appreciate this is a vital area that needs to be looked at. For these reasons, I strongly support the motion that calls for every model 3 and model 4 hospital to have a dedicated mental health emergency room, separate from the emergency department. A dedicated mental health emergency room would be a game-changer for the likes of Letterkenny hospital. It would allow patients suffering …

I thank the Labour Party and Deputy Wall for bringing forward the motion on the right for employees to request flexible and remote working and the introduction of an action plan to improve transport services over the next 12 months. If I could add one thing to the motion it would be to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to make flexibility and remote working possible, in particular in rural areas. It might shock some Deputies to know that parts of Donegal still do not have access to fibre broadband, which i…